That headline appeared in the online version of the New York Times in mid-October, just a few days after the U.S. Congress reached a last-minute agreement that avoided a debt default and reopened the partially shuttered U.S. government. The 16-day government shutdown closed federal agencies, parks and museums and furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal workers — all because the two major political parties in the United States can’t work together. The two sides now have until the end of this year to work out a longer-term solution or face the prospect of another shutdown early in 2014.
What does this have to do with safety? Consider this: After a Spirit Airlines Airbus A319 suffered an engine failure — originally reported to be an uncontained failure — on Oct. 15, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had to recall investigators from furlough to look into the matter, according to published reports. While NTSB quickly determined that the engine failur…
